Confirmed: Snus Use Protective for Parkinson’s Disease

Dr. Brad Rodu is a Senior Fellow of the Heartland Institute and holds the Endowed Chair in Tobacco Harm Reduction Research at the University of Louisville’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center.

Rodu’s research focuses on the substitution of safer tobacco products by smokers who are unable or unwilling to quit smoking with conventional cessation methods because of their addiction to nicotine. His research in comparative epidemiology established the scientific foundation for harm reduction and he continues to study clinical and social interventions aimed at harm reduction.

Investigators in Sweden, Italy and the United States report that “non-smoking men who used snus had a substantially reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease…”

The research, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology (abstract here), combined data from seven Swedish cohort studies involving nearly 350,000 men. Subjects were classified according to tobacco use and diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (an illness of the nervous system affecting movement) over an average 16 years of follow-up.

The bottom line: Current snus use, not former use, was strongly protective against Parkinson’s disease, with more protection from heavier and long-term use.

This is not the first such finding. In 2009, I discussed (here) research from the American Cancer Society showing a similar strong protective effect (Relative risk, RR = 0.22, CI = 0.07 – 0.67) (abstract here). Further, Parkinson’s may not be the only nerve illness for which smokeless tobacco and/or nicotine use is protective. Snus users have a significantly lower risk for multiple sclerosis than nonusers of tobacco (here). Nicotine has been found to improve performance in people with mild cognitive impairment, and it may also benefit those with Alzheimer’s disease (discussed here).

The current study represents a new era in Swedish snus research. It was conducted by the Swedish Collaboration on Health Effects of Snus Use, “which brought together Swedish prospective cohort studies with detailed information on tobacco smoking and snus use.”

In the past, the snus research field was dominated by investigators at the Karolinska Institute; they published a series of studies that featured obvious technical problems and contradictions, and routinely found significant, small risks. I documented these flawed studies in professional journals and in my blog (here, here, here, and here).

It is my hope that the Swedish Collaboration, with investigators from multiple universities in Sweden and beyond, will produce valuable, unbiased research on the health impact of snus use.

[First published at Tobacco Truth at http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com]

Confirmed: Snus Use Protective for Parkinson’s Disease was last modified: January 6th, 2017 by Brad Rodu